DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT AND LABOUR UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE FUND
The Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) is a public entity of the Department of Labour and is one of the key social security agencies in the country. The purpose of the Unemployment Insurance Act (No 63 of 2001) is to provide for the payment of benefits subject to certain conditions, resulting from ordinary unemployment benefits, illness, adoption and maternity. The Fund struggled to meet its financial obligations in 1994 and the new democratic government appointed a special interdepartmental task group to look into the matter. Various interventions could not work until the repeal of the Unemployment Insurance Fund Act and the introduction of the Unemployment Contributions Act, which came into effect on 1 April 2002. As more employers and employees registered with the Fund, revenue collection
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25 YEARS OF SUCCESS
improved. This prodded the Fund to improve its claims processing and payment systems. The systems also helped to enhance UIF’s ability to keep proper records of claims and funds disbursed.
review, IT infrastructure upgrade, systems integration, staff training and call centre capacitation. Significant progress has been made in the majority of these initiatives.
Payment finalisation has improved from an average of ten to seven days. This means that in excess of
The queue management system was rolled out in all labour centres and by the end of March 2018, they were all capacitated. This assisted clients at labour centres to access services efficiently and quickly.
240 000 monthly claimants are able to receive payments daily. Furthermore, UIF introduced the uFiling system to enable employees to submit claims in the comfort of their homes.
SERVICE DELIVERY IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVES In 2017 the Fund developed the Service Delivery Action Plan which seeks to improve the rendering of services by the UIF. The plan includes among others: a queue management system, business processes
QUEUE MANAGEMENT
BUSINESS PROCESS REVIEW We are already witnessing the success of the business processing review in that the processing time for all benefit claims have been reduced significantly, with claims for unemployment benefit being reduced from 35 days to 15 days. IT INFRASTRUCTURE The Fund is upgrading the IT infrastructure at labour centres to reduce downtimes and improve processing time.